From the Article

>It was not a foregone conclusion, as there are some potentially negative environmental factors to mining in space. While it might not cause any immediate harm to ecosystems as it does here on Earth, it does destroy "pristine" environments that have arguably been around since the dawn of the solar system, at least in the case of the asteroids. As excellently portrayed in the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, there will always be a part of humanity that will want to leave space as it is

Also form the Article

> However, there are some other confounding factors, including, as the authors point out, that both lunar and asteroid mining are, at this point, highly abstract concepts, the real impact of which may be hard to grok for many study participants. But studies such as this have to start somewhere, and waiting until after there is already a fully-fledged mining mission on the moon to see if it has public support might be a little late. For now, at least, those interested in moving forward with this aspect of the economic development of space have the public on their side.